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Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones called the commissioners court’s unanimous approval of $1.7 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office’s (HCSO) TeleDeputy Unit on Tuesday “huge for Harris County.”
According to a report from Houston NPR affiliate Houston Public Media (HPM), the TeleDeputy Unit is an overtime program for sheriff’s deputies who remotely respond to minor 911 calls such as abandoned vehicles or alleged shoplifting.
“By freeing up law enforcement officers to double down and focus on these high-priority calls, we will be keeping residents of Harris County safer,” Briones said in the report. “This is huge for Harris County.”
Per a report from Houston NBC affiliate KPRC, Briones said that 60% of the calls the HCSO fields are for incidents that are less severe. KPRC reported that Briones, a Democrat, spearheaded the effort to secure the nearly $2 million for the program. The commissioner believes more funding for the TeleDeputy Unit will not just benefit the HCSO, but the people of Harris County as well, according to the station.
HPM reported that the sheriff’s office has contended with higher response times to serious calls because of a growing population and staffing issues within the agency. The HCSO said it currently takes deputies 16 1/2 minutes to respond to what are classified as high-priority calls, which is a 23% jump from nearly half a decade ago, according to HPM. According to the report, the department seeks to achieve response times of 10 minutes or less.
Briones praised the HCSO for finding a way to better leverage officers’ time to where response times decline and lives are saved, Houston FOX affiliate KRIV reported. KRIV reported that Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzales said funding the TeleDeputy Unit is a commitment to community safety, adding his agency will benefit from “harnessing the power of technology.”